Between Mayberry and Megalopolis: Smart Policing a Small Border City in South Texas

• In Event: Smart Policing and Legal Smarts

Abstract

Using the smart policing strategy -- scanning, analyzing, responding, and assessing – to make policing more effective and efficient and reduce crime three experimental projects were developed and carried out in Pharr, Texas. These projects were tailored to this small city on the U.S.-Mexican border, taking into account of its size -- between a major city and small town -- and its poverty and drug trafficking issues, projects that could easily be continued on into the future by this police department within its limited manpower and financial resources: (1) a place-based, POP-COP strategy; (2) an offender-based domestic violence reduction strategy involving station adjustment and a “peace committee”; and (3) a false alarm reduction strategy to help the PD save money and help police focus more on real crime. Issues relating to diffusion of practices, unplanned treatments, and low crime and population levels led to threats to validity and mixed quantitative results, while more qualitative information better indicated some successes.

Authors

• S. George Vincentnathan, University of Texas - Pan American

• Lynn Vincentnathan, University of Texas - Pan American